


Winners and Losers

by SpicyCheese



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, and board games, like the fluffiest?, that's actually about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 09:46:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9174652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyCheese/pseuds/SpicyCheese
Summary: Lena attends game night. The problem is she can't seem to win.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for the SuperLadiesChallenge off Tumblr (found [here](http://superladieschallenge.tumblr.com/rules)). Prompt was "Winners and Losers". Once again, fluff central (probably because I'm pouring all my angsty, unrequited pinning moments into another fic at the moment). Enjoy!

 

 

*_*_*_*_*

 

Lena Luthor is a loser.

Technically speaking.

She didn’t know it would turn out that way, of course. When she first attended game night, she’d been optimistic. Nervous, but optimistic. After all, this is what people do when you get closer to them right? They introduce you to their friends. So as hesitant as Lena was to meet these people she knew, if it went well, it’d be a big step between her and Kara.

That first time was indeed slightly awkward, everyone seeming a bit reticent about a Luthor joining their circle, however she grew on them over time.

It didn’t hurt that she never won any games. Ever.

This was definitely not intentional. As much as Lena wanted to impress Kara’s friends, she’s not the type to put forth less than her best. It simply seems that when it comes to party games, her best isn’t good enough. Kara’s sister Alex was the last to warm to Lena and for a brief moment she entertained the idea that Alex and the rest might be collectively working against her. That idea was dismissed quickly though. It was clear after the fourth or fifth week of straight loses, that only Lena was to blame for her poor performance.

Over time everyone’s rationalizations, including her own, about _why_ she kept losing changed. It went from ‘you just need more practice’, to ‘maybe this just isn’t your game’ to ‘it’s just bad luck’.

After the second month of straight losses the group as a whole (including Alex) started to feel a little bad about it. In an attempt to lighten the mood, they made it into a sort of running joke. It turned into ‘Ready to lose again Luthor?’ and ‘Maybe you should just be score keeper?’ with Kara still fighting for the positive with ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this one!’

Lena simply accepted it. Winning would be nice, but spending time with Kara was far nicer. From the moment they met Lena was struck by Kara’s warmth, generosity and kindness. She was the most genuine person Lena ever met and she treated Lena like any other person, instead of like a Luthor. Lena felt safe to be herself and was continually surprised that Kara liked that person.

And god- did Lena like Kara. It turned out that the reporter wasn’t some ingénue Disney character. She was fiery, passionate, courageous, and strong. She was her own hero (and sort of became Lena’s too).

Maybe it was that drive to achieve justice and stick up for the little guy, but as Lena’s loses continued, Kara started to take them personally. It became her crusade or sorts: Lena Luthor was going to win a board game.

She started by expanding the game collection significantly, borrowing and then buying new games. When Lena realized this, she told her not to waste her money. Kara didn’t listen of course- this was her new mission- so Lena simply started leaving gift cards to Target around the house so at least the mission wouldn’t effect Kara’s budget. (When the stacks started to become a bit much, Lena suggested they donate them to the Children’s hospital, so at least _someone_ could enjoy them).

Over time, strategy based games were abandoned for games of pure luck but even Candy Land seemed to be pitted against Lena. It was absurd at this point, all she could do really was laugh and continue to focus on her own mission: Getting closer with Kara.

Things went incredibly well on that front. Kara’s apartment has a warm and casual feel that broke down so many more barriers. Flirting was easily played off as competitive banter and trash talk, and touches and hugs are given freely in the spirit of excitement or consolation. They’d sit next to each other on the couch, close enough that legs or knees would touch and the warmth that spread through Lena had nothing to do with mere body heat.

It’s a special type of torture though, being allowed so close and yet nowhere as close as she’d like, and it was starting to drive her a bit crazy. Whatever physical poise and restraint she was able to muster did not extend to her thoughts. Lena could not begin to count how many daydreams she’d had involving her sweeping game board pieces off the tabletops and replacing it with their bodies instead. Her fantasies involving monopoly money alone would have the Parker Brothers rolling in their graves.

It was all for nothing though. Kara had spoken of past relationships and crushes, _all male_ , so there’s never been reason for Lena to think her affections would be reciprocated. So, she focused on their friendship instead and somewhere along the way Kara’s friends have become her friends too. Getting to know them as well as getting to know Kara more intimately (albeit not in the biblical sense) may not have been what she intended at first, it turned out to be more than she could have ever dreamed.

 

“So what’re we playing tonight?” James asks, taking a sip of his beer.

Tonight marks the fifth straight month of Lena joining game night and after an especially difficult week, Lena is looking forward to it more than ever.

“Check it out” Kara begins, walking over to the table and picking up a gigantic pad of paper. “I took this from work. They got new white boards and were just going to throw it out!-can you believe that? I thought we could play Pictionary.”

The group throws out a collective groan.

“Sounds like a fun one,” Lena rolls her eyes, and setting down her wine. “So how does this one go?”

“Oh, it’s easy,” she laughs. “You split into teams of two and each team gets a list of words. On your turn one partner tries to draw a picture of a word and have the other guess. The words get harder each time and you get 60 seconds for each round, and after a few rounds the team with the most correctly guessed words wins. Just pictures though- no writing!”

“I failed 2nd grade art, you know that right?” Winn sighs.

“You can be with James then,” Kara smiles- used to ignoring everyone’s grousing about certain types of games. “He has a background in art.”

“In _photography_. Don’t think that’s really going to help here,” James grins.

“I’ll get this started,” Maggie smirks, detangling herself from Alex and taking the marker Kara offers. “Fair warning, these are likely going to look crude- in every sense of the word,” she jokes. “Ready?”

“Ready,” Alex says, sitting up. Lena’s learned that Alex’s competitiveness infuses all aspects of her life- right down to silly game night. During the worst of Lena’s losing streak, she was dismayed to find something akin to pity in Alex’s eyes. Maybe it’s the big sister thing, but for whatever reason finding Alex leveling pity at her made those loses feel so much worse at the time.

“Aaaaaand- go!” Winn says, pressing the timer on his watch.

Maggie draws a circle and scribbles a bunch of little lines on it that kind of look like hairs. She turns around, “Well?”

“Uh…a Kiwi?” Alex offers.

“Seriously?” Maggie huffs, rolling her eyes. She goes back to the drawing, adding a long rectangle with rounded ends and an oval-like shape attached the bottom. She turns around again to present her work. “How ‘bout now?”

“Um, you weren’t kidding about being crude- are you sure these words are PG-13?” Alex jokes. “Because that kinda looks like a dick.”

Maggie snorts looking from the drawing back to Alex. “ _Really_ Danvers?” She laughs and goes back to the paper to add a diamond shape, with little diamonds at the corners of each and-

“-Baseball!” Alex exclaims.

“Finally!” Maggie sighs dramatically.

“Time!” Winn adds, watch beeping to punctuate the end of the turn.

Maggie hands off the marker to Lena and saunters back to sit with Alex on the couch. “A dick? Okay, yeah, if it weren’t clear you were gay before…”

Alex swats at her playfully before addressing Lena, “With that sad performance, I’d say you might have a fighting chance Luthor. Good luck!”

Lena chuckles and takes a look at the list at the list. First word is ‘fish’. “Ready Kara?”

Like her sister, Kara is sitting on the edge of her seat, fully attentive and ready to compete. “Ready.”

“Go!” Winn says, starting the time.

Lena quickly scribbles an outline of a fish. It’s simple and looks like a goldfish cracker but Kara gets it screaming ‘FISH!’ so excitedly, it startles a everyone a little.

Next word is ‘Cowboy’. She jots out a quick outline of a man, ten-gallon hat, star, spurs. It takes her just a few seconds and she’s only half way through before Kara yells ‘A COWBOY!’ and Lena has to try and tamp herself down inside because Kara’s excitement is contagious.

Lena moves on and blazes through more- ‘Razor’, ‘Whistle’, ‘Macaroni’, ‘Dizzy’ - she has to take a second to conceptualize them but is able to jot them down rapidly and apparently well enough for Kara to get them. Winn’s watch beeps in the middle of her drawing of ‘forgiveness’ and she’s disappointed that her time is up. She has a feeling she’s done well but when she turns around she’s not so sure. Maggie, Alex and James have mouths agape. Winn throws his arms up in the air in disgusted defeat, but Kara- Kara is looking like she just got given a puppy for Christmas.

“Was that- was that good?” Lena asks, truly unsure at this point if she’s done something wrong.

Maggie starts cackling and Kara jumps up and squeezes Lena so tight she thinks she might have cracked her back.

“Are you kidding- I’ve never seen anything like that! _Lena_ \- you didn’t tell me you could draw! You’re incredible!”

Lena feels her face flush a bit, though whether it’s from the praise or the way Kara still has her body wrapped around her is unclear. “Yeah, I studied art along side engineering in college,” she wheezes, reluctantly prying herself out of Kara’s vice grip hold.

She steps back to apprise the rest of the group who are all grinning as well- except for Winn, who is still faux grumbling.

“Should we even bother playing? Not much of a competition now?” James jokes.

“ _Oh we are finishing this game_ ,” Kara all but growls, serious as a heart attack. She plucks the marker out of Lena’s hand and slaps it into Winn’s. He groans but she levels a look at him that could melt a person and he begrudgingly makes his way to the board.

James was right, Lena had the clear dominating advantage, but everyone still played it out to their hardest, fighting for every point and talking about last minute comebacks like they had a chance, making the win as sweet and earned as possible.

And Lena definitely enjoyed the win.

Trash talking was way better having the points to back it up and being excited instead of dismayed each time Winn’s timer went off was pretty nice too. And while she knows she earned Alex’s respect a while back, seeing a look of impressed approval in the agent’s eyes is a win all in itself.

But Kara. Kara was something else.

Her trash talk was cranked to eleven and whenever her turn was over she’d rejoin Lena on the couch, and throw an almost possessive arm her. Kara’s mood was expansive, like an evil queen sitting atop her a throne triumphantly watching her enemies fall before her. While Lena certainly didn’t mind the attitude shift (quite the contrary), it was definitely puzzling. All she could come up with was that maybe Kara had still been internalizing a lot of Lena’s loses and now she didn’t have to feel bad anymore?

Lena didn’t dwell on it really. They all have a good time, even Winn, and in the end her and Kara’s score is triple that of the rest of the group. Kara, still drunk on their win, insists on making plans to celebrate the end of Lena’s losing streak at the alien bar on Friday night until everyone agrees.

The group starts to disperse, Winn and James leaving first, followed by Alex and Maggie. As Lena finishes the dregs of her wine she notes Alex dawdling a little, talking to Kara. They hug and Alex must say something funny because Kara gives her a playful shove before ushering her out the door. Lena takes that as her cue and rises to gather her coat. Kara meets her by the open the door. “My driver should be here in a sec.”

“Oh,” Kara frowns slightly, and Lena swears she looks a bit disappointed. “Okay then.”

Both just stand there quietly but it feels like something’s building between them, though it’s not clear what. Kara opens her mouth to speak but pauses, as if thinking better of it. She ends up with, “Congrats again, on the win.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“I uh, I just wanted to say that having you at game nights has been really great.”

Lena wants to say that it’s the best part of her week, getting to spend time with Kara but settles for, “Yeah it has.”

Kara pauses again, biting her lip- and lord did Lena wish she wouldn’t do that while they’re standing so close. “So, uh, what kinds of art did you study in college?”

“All sorts, drawing, painting,” Lena shrugs, still apprehensive what the sudden change in mood is about.

“Ever draw people?”

“Yeah, I actually did a figure drawing class at one point. We even had nude models.”

“Well, uh, maybe you could draw me sometime.”

Lena laughs. She laughs because it’s unexpected and adorable and to cover up the fact that happened to exactly what she had been thinking about at the moment. “You’re saying you want me to ‘draw you like one of my French girls’ like in _Titanic_?”

Kara’s not laughing though. “Well, kinda. Yeah.”

Everything inside Lena comes screeching to a halt. “What?”

Kara takes a big breath, letting it out in a huff. “Lena I like you. Like, _a lot_. I just sorta haven’t really been sure to tell you? Originally, I thought if you started coming to these game nights I could get to know you better, and I did…” Kara sighs. “…but then you started losing. Like every time. And part of me knew it had nothing to do with us, but I started to get worried that maybe you wouldn’t want to come back so I got really focused on you winning and maybe got it muddled up and connected with the possibility of you liking me back and didn’t want to try and tell you until you won, and now I’m rambling” She toss her arms up slightly, like she’s completely unsure of what to do with herself or anything about the situation.

Lena is stunned, in everyway. Her brain is both sluggish and racing and all she can think to say is, “Kara that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

Kara blushes a bit. “Yeah, that’s what Alex said.”

Awkwardness threatens to drift between them but Lena’s not about to let it settle- not when Kara just confirmed everything she’s wanted to hear for months and months. Instead she musters her courage and steps forward a bit, reaches out and takes Kara’s hand. “I kept coming to these games nights because I like you too.”

Kara’s face brightens, a sheepish grin spreading. “Yeah Alex said that too. And Maggie. And Winn and James. I just… didn’t want to get my hopes up unless I knew for sure.”

Lena chuckles, “Well I certainly wasn’t here each week for the ego boost.”

Kara squeezes her hand. “Well I’m glad you stuck around.”

“Me too.”

This time it’s Kara that makes a move, inching just a bit closer and just as she seems on the precipice of saying something, Lena’s phone buzzes interrupting them. She checks it. “It seems my driver’s here.”

“Oh,” Kara says, letting go of Lena’s hand, clearly disappointed.

“Hold on a moment,” Lena smiles, and presses callback on her phone, lifting it to her ear. “William? Yes. I don’t believe I’ll be needing your services after all. Thank you.” She hangs up, grinning.

Now Kara’s grinning too, reaching and intertwining their fingers once more. “So you’re staying?”

Lena closes the door and leans her back against it. She feels like champagne is flowing through her veins, bubbly and warm and drunk on the fact that suddenly she and Kara really could be all that she hoped. Maybe it’s that’s giddiness that emboldens her but she squeezes Kara’s hand once more, and pulls Kara gently towards her and doesn’t stop until they’re almost touching. “It seems I’m on a winning streak. It’d be a shame to quit now.”

To Lena’s great surprise, Kara closes the remaining space between them and god- having Kara’s body against hers is just… she doesn’t even have words for it. Lena slowly- slow enough to give Kara a chance to protest if she wants- slides her hands down until they resting bracketed on Kara’s hips.

Whatever tentativeness Lena has, Kara seems to lack because she doesn’t hesitate to slide her hands up Lena’s arms, until they’re resting at the base of her neck. “Winning streak huh. Maybe I can think of a few two-player games for us try...”

Lena’s jaw drops a little, unable to believe Kara just said that, but the other woman’s grin has shifted into something more of a wolfish smirk. Lena recognizes it as the same face she makes when she’s about to deal the final blow to win a game and the prospects that holds makes Lena hot all over again.

“Oh really?” Lena hand slides down a bit to cup Kara’s ass. She squeezes slightly and is rewarded by the little hitch (a gasp really) in the Kara’s breathing. She leans forward slightly, and is surprised how throaty her own voice sounds. “Think I stand a chance?”

Kara chuckles it sends shivers through her because it’s low and she bites her lip like Lena has no idea what she’s in for. Maybe she doesn’t. “I think you might get lucky.”

Five months is a long time to wait, but Lena thinks she could get used to this winning thing.

 

*_*_*_*_*


End file.
